James Grippando - Money to Burn

Andrea watched as the show opened from Times Square with a shot of the famous high-tech display that wrapped around the cylindrical NASDAQ building. Saxton Silvers was a NYSE-listed company, but as if to underscore the pervasive impact of the story, the firm’s name was all over the NASDAQ marquee that lit up Broadway with up-to-the-minute financial newsflashes. The image switched abruptly to an interior shot of the NASDAQ MarketSite. Electronic screens inside the digital broadcast studio carried live updates from markets that were open for trading on the other side of the world. Finally, the introductory credits and voice-over stopped, and Chuck Bell took over from his seat behind the news desk.

“Good evening, and welcome,” he said.

The host of FNN’s hit show Bell Ringer-he mentioned it twice in thirty seconds-was grinning widely as he introduced his panel of experts: a hedge-fund manager, a retired member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, and two other “experts” for whom Andrea had missed the introductions while struggling with a too-short strand of dental floss. This wasn’t FNN-not the usual shouting on the set-so she increased the volume and listened to Bell “get the ball rolling” with the latest revelation from his source.

“It seems that Michael Cantella didn’t just unload his holdings in Saxton Silvers the night before the stock dropped through the floor,” said Bell. “My source tells me that Cantella was actually betting against his company with short sales that could net him eight figures-literally overnight. And the number just keeps getting bigger as the stock continues to drop.

“It’s a short-selling frenzy,” said the hedge-fund hotshot. “All it takes is one or two multibillion-dollar hedge funds to jump on the short-selling bandwagon of a failing investment bank worth seventy-five billion, and Cantella’s personal profit is going to look like peanuts.”

Bell said, “That’s precisely the reason I have been so careful with my reporting. I trust my source.”

The print journalist jumped in. “There are those who would say that Michael Cantella is your source.”

Bell smiled and shrugged coyly, saying nothing.

Another chimed in. “Come on, Chuck. Give us a clue.”

Andrea kept watching as she reached for the telephone.

Bell continued, “All I have to say on this subject is maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t Michael Cantella. This journalist will never reveal his source.”

Andrea smiled flatly and said, “We’ll see about that.”

She dialed from memory the number she could never write down anywhere, then bounced an idea off someone much smarter than Phil the phony fiancé.

I COULD HAVE THROWN THE TELEVISION SET OUT THE WINDOW. Except my tiny hotel room didn’t have a window. And it smelled like mildew. Still, the accommodations were the least of my worries. This time Bell had pushed it too far:

Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t Michael Cantella.

I found his business card in my wallet and dialed his cell. The call went straight to his voice mail. If the last twenty-four hours had not been the nightmare from hell, I probably would have stopped myself from leaving such an angry message. But at this point I didn’t care.

“Bell, this is Michael Cantella. I saw your show. I want a retraction, and I want it tonight. If I don’t get it, you had better hope that you hear from my lawyers. Because you won’t want to hear from me.”

The instant I hit End, the phone rang on the nightstand. It was the front desk telling me that there was no other room I could switch to. The Saxton Silvers go-to hotels on the West Side had been no help, and the dozen other hotels I’d tried in Midtown were also fully booked. Apparently the entire world had followed up April in Paris with May in New York.

“One other thing,” said the night manager. “Your credit card was declined.”

I was sure it had something to do with the fraud alert sent out today on my credit report. I offered up another card, but after hearing the words “fraud alert,” the manager insisted on cash in advance.

“Do you have an ATM in the hotel?”

“It’s broken.”

He agreed to hold the room for thirty minutes while I went out and searched for an ATM-provided that I leave him the last two hundred dollars in my wallet as a nonrefundable cash deposit. What a guy. I was crossing Third Avenue, walking through a cloud of steam rising up from a manhole cover, when Eric Volke rang my cell. He’d watched Bell’s round-table discussion.

“Michael, I want a straight answer: Are you Chuck Bell’s source?”

“No way, no how.”

“The FBI found a bug in Sonya’s car.”

“I told you they would.”

“Which has the FBI wondering how you knew it was there.”

That one had me reeling. “What? Did you show the FBI the text message? That’s how I knew.”

“That may be. But I’m telling you there’s a black cloud over you right now, and you just keep making it darker.”

“Eric, for the last time: I am not Bell’s source.”

“Are you denying that you met with him tonight in the lobby of his building?”

“Are you having me followed?”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

Shit. I should have realized that a face-to-face meeting with Bell might look bad. One crisis piling up after another was clearly clouding my judgment.

“I was trying to get him to admit on the air that I wasn’t his source. And then he pulled this stunt. The guy’s a sleazebag, and one way or another, I’m going to get a retraction out of that son of a bitch.”

“You’re playing with fire, Michael.”

“You can say that again,” I said, thinking of yesterday’s flaming package.

“And I can’t stand by and watch this whole thing blow up in your face and mine. You have confidentiality obligations to this firm. If you breach them, you will be fired, and you will be sued. Do you understand?”

Never before had Eric used that tone with me. He was obviously still steaming over my Bell Ringer debacle. “I would never betray you or the firm.”

“Then don’t make me have another conversation with you about this. Because there are people here who want you gone. Saxton Silvers will go down if I have to waste another minute going to bat for you. I’ve always been your biggest supporter, and I hate having to talk to you like this. But we’re in crisis mode. I can’t defend people who fan the flames.”

He hung up after a clipped “good night.”

I tucked away my phone and took a deep breath. It was after midnight, and the night was turning cooler, downright cold. My sport coat wasn’t enough to keep me warm, but the only clothes I had were those I’d worn to dinner with Papa. I didn’t even have a toothbrush, and the last two drugstores I’d passed were closed. I spotted a bank marquee on the next corner: Forty-two degrees. Chilly for early May, but not unheard of at this hour. I buried my hands in my pockets and walked into the wind until I reached the bank’s ATM. I looked around quickly to make sure I wasn’t going to be mugged; that would have been all I needed. With the two-hundred-dollar deposit I’d given the hotel manager, I needed another three hundred to pay for that ridiculously overpriced room. The machine churned and clattered, then spit out a receipt.

Non-sufficient Funds, it read.

I tried two hundred, one hundred, and then twenty fucking dollars.

Non-sufficient funds.

This was my joint account with Mallory at a bank wholly unrelated to Saxton Silvers. Even though we had taken steps to protect it this morning, I had the sinking feeling that Mallory might be at risk, too. I dialed her cell. No answer. I dialed the landline, and it kept ringing.